


for you to hear me

by 2pork



Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gods reborn as humans, M/M, daniel is there for a while, jihoon is a god, woojin is a warrior
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-10 23:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12922881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2pork/pseuds/2pork
Summary: The village attaches a title to Jihoon and calls him a god, a blessed one. The village stows him away, as if he’s an object, and calls it protection.Woojin tries to understand.





	1. Chapter 1

“The gods died long ago,” the elder speaks, swathed in fabrics befitting her rank within their village. Rich material in rich colors, but a mere patch of the extravagance woven into the tapestries on the walls, and those too are petals against the spring in full bloom outside. She has been discussing at length, spanning weeks of lessons, about the wondrous world of Before.

Before, when the gods yet walked the earth, bounty blooming where each step lands.

Before, when the gods had flown in the skies followed by the sprawling canvases of day and night.

Before, when the gods were birthed from the bubbling springs and flowed with the rivers, gathering numbers, gathering strength, to raise the tides of the sea.

Before, when people could breathe a prayer to the winds and the winds whispered back a promise.

Before, when enough was plenty.

Before man asked too much and received too little.

To Woojin, who has just learned, who needs to accept, that he lives in the shreds of a war-torn After, the Before seems to shimmer like a dream just out of his grasp. He looks then to the boy beside him, the only other child in the village deemed old enough for lessons. Unlike Woojin who lives under the generosity of the elders, who is obliged to spend sunrise to sunset proving himself useful to the village, this boy reeks of privilege. His every step dogged by their proudest warriors, reverence oozing from the way he is regarded by the people, yet he looks and speaks to no one.

Even during their lessons, the boy has only idly studied the fabrics adorning the walls of the hut, with only the most minute of twitches indicating he has also been listening.

With remarkable strength, Woojin tamps down his disgust and turns his gaze back to the elder. “What do you mean by _died_? Are the gods gone forever?”

The elder doesn’t answer for a while, but the silence slithers into Woojin’s ears and speaks volumes. He wishes he can understand what it means to say, and why the boy beside him has suddenly hunched over, as if struck by something Woojin can’t see.

“They are gone, but not entirely,” says the elder. “Part of them remains among us, a blessing left behind by those who have formed an attachment to certain places, certain people.”

“What kind of blessing is it?” Woojin’s attention drifts towards the boy. “Is it luck?”

The room turns colder, but this, Woojin attributes to the sun sinking very slowly into the horizon. The elder reaches for her cane and uses it to tap Woojin on the head. “We will save that for the next lesson,” she says, and pays no mind to how the unnamed boy rises to his feet and all but runs out of the hut.

 

-

 

After the turning of the leaves, after the world is a blanket of reds and oranges resting delicately on the branches of trees, the elder declares their lessons over. Time hasn’t endeared her two students to each other, but Woojin bids him as polite a goodbye as he can bite out while the other boy is escorted away by his mother and one guard.

“She _is_ his mother, isn’t she?” he remarks to the elder as they watch the group depart, a solemn procession. “He isn’t like me?”

At the second question, her sharp disapproval softens into something sadder that Woojin cannot put a name to. “They are family, yes,” she hums in the pause, transfixed still at the mother and son.

Woojin thinks he can’t blame her, as he takes in the sight of possibly the most tender expression he has ever seen on the boy’s face. Brown eyes gleaming under the small beams of sunlight filtering through the thick canopy, curving upwards with the corners of his lips. His mother reaches out a hand and he takes it, hesitantly at first, though the beginnings of doubt melt away when she grips back tighter.

Woojin whispers, “So he can make that kind of face too,” and the words shrivel up just past Woojin’s lips when he feels a wrinkled hand hook onto his shoulder.

The elder says with her usual jaggedness, “You’d do well to put him out of your mind,” and _Why_ barely forms on the tip of his tongue before she continues, “He carries a burden on his shoulders. Too heavy for a child perhaps, but it is one he must carry his entire life, regardless of whether or not his fate is tied to this village.”

Woojin frowns, frustrated at his own inability to piece out her meaning. “But why can’t anyone help him carry it then? Surely his mother would want to! You saw them!”

“Because it is not for _her_.”

He doesn’t understand. _He doesn’t understand._

“You will understand,” she says suddenly, her hand leaving his shoulder as she turns away from him and heads back into her small hut. “When he has taken the veil and you have taken your oath, or beyond that. You must be patient, Woojin.” The fabrics hanging from her bony frame trail behind her, dragging through the dry ground, over the questions Woojin has yet to unearth.

 

-

 

Woojin hardly gets a moment of peace from sunrise to sunset. Every moment of the day that isn’t spent aiding the elders in their daily tasks is taken up by odd jobs for one villager or another. Some mornings, he is sent off to gather firewood in the forest or to catch fish in the nearby river. Some afternoons, he is asked to sit down and help weave fabrics for the coming winter.

On evenings, he is dismissed to do whatever he pleases; though what he pleases is usually laying down inside his own hut near the surrounding treeline and sleeping. There’s very little for him to do inside the village, and nothing at all that he is allowed to do outside it.

“The forest will not harm you,” his teacher once said to him. “The forest is a blessing, and it keeps us alive, but it protects more than just our village.”

 _Monsters_ , he often hears parents telling their children. _Just because they look the same as you and I does not mean that they are._ _There are people out there that crave for more than they have, and if they need to hurt and take from others to achieve their ends, they will do so._

_Stay in the village. Stay where it’s safe._

Woojin had never had a parent to tell him these things, though, and a few steps in the privacy of the forest shouldn’t hurt. _Only a few steps_ , he chants silently as he walks past the torches marking the edge of the settlement. _Just a few more_ , until he’s a shadow slipping further and further into the trees, until the light from the torches flicker in behind him like stars. He pays the distance no mind; ahead of him a space opens up, almost shining under the brilliant moon, and his feet take him there without a single moment of hesitation.

Perhaps there should have been. Perhaps he should have stopped and turned back to the safety that lay behind him, back to the tiny hut that has sheltered him since he had been considered old enough to live alone.

Woojin keeps walking.

Even before his sandals touch the grass inside the clearing, the sweet fragrance of flowers wafts towards him, and what greets him is a small field of gleaming silver and green, the soft rustle of the wind on thin branches, and the boy from his lessons, lying spread-eagled on the grass.

Without thinking, he utters, “It’s you.” The boy’s eyes snap open at the sound of his voice and he shoots up, staring at Woojin with an alarmed look about him. Woojin raises his hands in front of him, slowly, in an attempt to placate or at least get him to listen. “I won’t tell anyone that you’re here.”

The wariness turns into a disbelieving sneer.

“Look, if I did tell anyone, wouldn’t I get in trouble too?” Woojin lowers his hands when the other doesn’t make a move to run back to the village. He waits until the boy gives a cautious nod before asking, “Can I sit with you?”

There’s a drawn out pause that seems designed to put Woojin ill at ease, and it works, in the sense that Woojin wants to walk over there and force him to nod. Eventually he receives a small incline of the head, so he approaches with the same carefulness he would spare for a timid animal but with a different purpose, enough time between each footfall for the other to back away.

Just a foot shy of where the boy is sitting, Woojin gingerly lowers himself on the damp grass, barely blinking at the way the moisture seeps into his clothes. Closer to the ground, he sees through the silvery twinkle of dew drops to the violet petals in full bloom. “I thought it would be too cold for flowers,” Woojin says in amazement, cradling one of them softly in his right hand. A sharp exhale catches his attention and he looks up to the boy hiding a grin behind his hand.

This is the second time he’s witnessed such an unfamiliar expression on the other’s face, Woojin can’t help but think, _I want to know what his laughter sounds like._ It might be this that drives him into his next thoughtless act of the night.

Despite knowing that their teacher would most likely knock him in the head for asking, he forges on. “Can I ask you something?”

The smile freezes on the other’s face and gradually settles into a neutral look.

This much, however, Woojin expects. “Can you speak?”

He gets a shrug in return.

“Is that a no?”

The boy’s nose scrunches up in frustration, hands curling into the colorful robes that appear to be too big on him. He shakes his head and looks dissatisfied at his own answer. His round eyes are so helpless that even Woojin is struck with it.

“It’s alright,” he says, though what he really wants is to apologize for asking something so difficult. Instead he lies down on the grass, fully intending to stay in the clearing for as long as possible. “So what were you doing before I got here?”

The other raises a half-finished flower crown and when Woojin only stares at him blankly, he throws the fragile string of flowers into Woojin’s face. He then proceeds to demonstrate the intricacies of creating rings of violet flowers with wide, passionate gestures.

They stay there for a long time, in the tiny gleaming world of just the two of them.

If Woojin could be honest with himself, he would wish for longer nights.

 

-

 

The sun has barely risen two days later when Woojin witnesses the boy being led out of the village, his face partially hidden by a veil that shimmers as red and orange as the treetops.

Woojin hears the name _Jihoon_ being tossed about among the crowd of adults murmuring around him. _Is that his name?_ As he squeezes past the people to get a better view, he spots the woman from before, collapsed on her knees and sobbing, _“Jihoon, Jihoon,”_ into her hands, and he realizes, heart dropping to his feet, that it is.

For the first time he wonders how this village that he loves is capable of such cruelty; how long they have been keeping the words _god_ and _hide_ behind _you’re too young_ and _maybe when you’re older._ He wonders how long Jihoon has known that he’ll be taken away from his home, stowed away like a useless bit of treasure.

Woojin doesn’t understand, how Jihoon could have withstood it or how anyone could willingly separate a family, and he starts to feel like he doesn’t want to.

 

-

 

Months come and go, and so do the seasons for planting and harvest. Outside their small, thriving village, the world continues to tear itself apart with cruel, greedy fingers. Woojin is reminded everyday that as much peace as their warriors have afforded them through their sweat and blood, this village still exists amidst the After.

He doesn’t ask about Jihoon, or where he is, or what he has been doing. He doesn’t need to, because everyday a clothed bundle of food is carried outside the perimeter of their village, and it’s a constant reminder of how Jihoon lives in isolation. Enshrined. A relic of the world of Before.

As more time passes, Woojin remembers Jihoon’s silence and how it must be more unnerving now, and more lonely. If he had tried a little earlier, even without words, they might still have gotten to be friends, though it feels increasingly pointless to ponder on it after so long.

On his sixteenth summer, Woojin kneels before the council and takes the oath to fight for the village. His teacher gazes down at him from where she is standing with the rest of the elders, gaze as cold as the riverbed rock. To the village, he swears to be a pillar of strength, akin to the ancient trees behind which they have flourished for centuries; to his teacher, silently, he swears to keep her teachings in his heart.

Once upon a time, she had told him about a blessing that isn’t luck, that feels a little like suffering. Here, at the dawn of his adulthood, the questions he had never been able to phrase seem to rise like buds of flowers before him.

 

-

 

It starts with blood on leaves.

Being young and inexperienced, Woojin is tasked to patrol the forest that had only been a mystery to him in his childhood. Now he knows each twisting path like the lines on his own palm, each stream and protruding root, and he knows when the forest has been touched by something foreign to their village.

Their hunters have always been swift and silent, something Woojin picks up from the older warrior showing him the ropes, and from encountering them several times in his patrol. When they carry their prizes back to the village, it is as if they had never entered the forest, with only the sharp noses of animals wise to their comings and goings.

It makes no sense to find blood spattered on the ground, near imperceptible on red and orange leaves. He halts, gesturing Euigeon closer to the blood.

Euigeon studies it, a frown marring his usually sunny visage. “Someone is hunting in our territory,” he concludes.

Apparently this isn’t as big of a problem as Woojin thinks, because Euigeon only pats him once on the back, a _‘good work spotting that’_ and then they move on. Later, they relay this to their commander, and the man nods but otherwise makes no comment.

“It happens more often than the village is informed,” Euigeon explains as they sit around a firepit built in a clearing, a short distance from the boundary torches. There are a handful of other warriors gathered near them, older than Woojin and more experienced in battle, but younger than Euigeon and thus too young to join the ranks of their more respected warriors who dine within the village. In fact, Euigeon shouldn’t be here, eating poorly roasted meat and mushrooms. Woojin had seen him several times acting as Jihoon’s escort, which must mean his skills are on par with the best, enough to be trusted with the safety of a _god._

Euigeon is also too friendly, too accommodating. Not letting slip even the smallest complaint about being saddled with a warrior hopeful who had only just left his childhood. Euigeon is smiling right now as he accepts the berries Woojin had stashed away in his pouch while they were patrolling. It’s not as disarmingly bright as Woojin had become accustomed to, but then again their topic isn’t one that begs laughter. “We’ve been blessed with lands that provide more than enough for us. It’s something to be thankful for, but others can see that too.”

“And we’re not going to do anything about that?” asks Woojin. “Have you tried catching them?”

Euigeon shakes his head. “We can spare a couple of deer. It’s not worth confronting some thieves, and even less if they happen to be part of another village. With our numbers, it’s better to focus on protecting our own.”

 

-

 

As the months drag on into winter, the disturbances increase in frequency, at the same time getting closer and closer to the village. If the perpetrators ever harbored any fear, they shake it off soon enough, abandoning their initial efforts at stealth.

One man manages to evade the night patrol and sneaks so close to the treeline that his ragged, torchlit face causes panic among the people in proximity. That is as far as he gets before he is speared down by Euigeon, though he does live long enough to confess desperately about the village from which he’d hailed.

The elders convene with the commander after that.

The decision they come to is for Euigeon and another warrior to accompany an elder and his student-scholars to a meeting with the other village. They hold out hope that an understanding can be reached.

One day draws to a close with no sign of their return, triumphant or otherwise, but they argue that negotiation has never been easy. Another day ends, and another, and another, until at last the village ceases hoping.

Five stones are added to the memorial of the lost.

As Woojin stands before them, his teacher’s words spring to the forefront of his mind.

_You must be patient, Woojin._

For what reason? And for how much longer?

So far, patience has only brought him loss.


	2. Chapter 2

The battles come back to Woojin in flashes that leave him reeling, from the pain of putting memory to injury, and from the overpowering scent of blood that remain on his hands. The very moment he leaps blade first into battle, his thoughts are drowned by the noises: the yelling and grunting and screaming, the ear-piercing shriek of metal against metal, the squelch of his blade as he plunges it into flesh and heaves it back out, his own shallow breaths during the brief respites, and the thunderous pounding in his ears.

He doesn’t know where he pulls out the speed and strength he uses to overpower his opponents, nor the will to keep moving in spite of his own injuries. All he knows, all that he holds onto, is that _he cannot die,_ that _he will not die,_ that _he has something he must live for_.

_The village. For the lives of his people. So they can live without worries. So they can smile without bitterness. So they can walk untouched by another’s blood._

_So_ he _can go back to that silver field, and one day not be so alone._

He slashes one man and fells another, each motion, each anguished face blurring into the next until Woojin is running purely on instinct. He coils most of his weight onto one leg and springs forward to attack, but somehow his movements feel so far away and separate from himself, all except for the conscious, unrelenting grip on the hilt of his blade.

This, he will not forget. That his hand, which had held onto a weapon so tightly in defense of his village, did so at the expense of many.

This, he remembers in the aftermath, grieving him more than the sharp pain piercing into his side, and leg, and arm. Wounds heal, but a life once lost cannot be regained.

Woojin stabs the blade into the ground and uses it to force himself back to his feet. He surveys his fellow warriors, already separating the bodies of their own for their return to the village. The rest will be burned, he realizes, when someone prods him into the forest to look for kindling.

“Why?” he asks, walking through the burn in his thighs, keeping the man his vision.

“It’s only right,” is the short answer, and Woojin resigns himself to picking up dried sticks from the ground, thinking that is all the answer he will receive. After several moments of silent labor however, the other continues with a tinge of bitterness, “Their village will never claim them.”

Woojin straightens up, hefting the bundle of wood on one shoulder, righteous anger welling up inside him. “Never claim…? But they’re their people! They fought for their village!”

“And they _lost._ ” The warrior seems to age a decade in front of Woojin’s eyes. “Don’t think for a second that our village will not do the same.” He turns his head to Woojin, the flash and spark of clashing metals still in the sharpness of his face. “Pillars of strength, same as the trees that protect the village. We’re only useful for as long as we haven’t been cut down.”

Woojin remembers a young boy being led away to live in isolation, when for the entire length of his life he’d only known the love of a mother. Suddenly he can’t find it in himself to argue.

 

-

 

The interlopers don’t stop, and neither do the battles.

Each time Woojin returns, victory assured, he is treated with more esteem, smiled at with approval. This acceptance feels like a dream come true, one that he’d been striving for forever, and yet it leaves him empty.

He is a hero. (He is a murderer.)

He is respected. (He is ashamed.)

Their praises don’t stop, and neither does his grief.

 

-

 

Woojin’s teacher pulls him aside one night, after he’s had rest and a small meal. It has been a while since he’d started being able to stomach them after a battle, and he doesn’t know what to do with that change. Is he becoming desensitized to the deaths on his hands? The thought causes him to frown, and this is what the elder catches when they arrive outside her hut.

She mistakes it as nervousness. “Do not fret. The news is not as bad as you think,” she says, waving her hand towards the entrance.

He doesn’t correct her. When he enters the hut, the rest of the council is gathered inside with the commander, some contemplative, some defeated. The commander wears a mask of neutrality, not revealing even a hint of the conversation that lies ahead of them.

Woojin kneels in deference and waits for them to speak.

“Raise your head,” one elder says, and Woojin complies, facing determinedly forward.

This is far different from the last time he had been inside this hut, the mood dark and somber against the colorful story woven into the tapestries. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the familiarity of his teacher’s presence, but even she has changed. Age has traced more lines onto her face, and the burdens of the village have left her back more stooped. Last time, he had been here as a student, still learning about the world. Now, it feels as if he knows more than he had been prepared for.

“We have a task for you,” says the same elder who had spoken earlier. “We need more men in battle.”

“More men?” Woojin questions, eyebrows pulling in. He hears a warning cough from the commander and falls into waiting silence.

“In any other case, we would not pull them away from their current duties.”

 _Oh._ Woojin attempts discreetly to seek his teacher, but it’s impossible with all eyes focused on him.

“But with how persistently we are being targeted, the need to increase our numbers has become more urgent. You have proven your worth as a warrior. We ask that you protect the god in place of the warriors we are recalling.”

The god. _Jihoon._ His name is _Jihoon._ Did these people get so used to hiding him that they have forgotten how to say his name?

“Woojin,” his teacher calls for his attention, and in her eyes he finds bits and pieces of the past he’d left behind. _Now is not the time. You must be patient. You will understand._

He swallows down the words brimming within him up to his lips, grits his teeth down on the frustration. “As you wish.”

 

-

 

The travel through the forest which would have taken two days, according to the commander who accompanies Woojin, can be traversed by boat in a fourth of that time. “It’s how the runners deliver food to them within the day. We need multiple runners because the way back takes two days. Can’t spare the people now,” he explains gruffly.

With the shrine being a considerable distance away, it makes sense to Woojin that more people are required to guard it. To leave all the responsibility of security and sustenance in Woojin’s hands, especially knowing there will be no easy way to signal for help, doesn’t strike him as sound.

Still, this is the corner that war has driven them into.

The commander steers their boat to shore and they drag it inland for the warriors to carry back to the village. For indefinite storage, Woojin supposes, since no food or messages will arrive for them once the men leave. Not until all the battles that need to be waged have been won.

Woojin follows the commander closely, sandals leaving wet tracks on dry ground, as they leave the shelter of the forest. The grass growth becomes sparser amidst the rocky terrain, while onwards the river continues to flow straight down a cliff edge to join with the sea.

His feet stick to the ground the moment he faces this wide expanse of blue that he had never seen before. It spreads before him endlessly, unbelievably, and for a moment he forgets the village, forgets his status as a warrior, forgets the duties now laid before him.

With nothing behind him, and a great unknown ahead, Woojin imagines this must be what freedom feels like.

The commander makes an impatient noise and juts his head in the direction of a stone formation just before the cliff.

Several warriors dressed in their traditional garb stand at attention in front of it, and behind them, wearing the veil of red and orange, is Jihoon. _He’s taller,_ is the first thing Woojin notes about him, followed almost immediately by the bearing that had set him apart from everyone close to their age, the very image of careless conceit.

The world hushes into the softest murmur, overpowered against logic by the delicate flutter of Jihoon’s robes. The vibrant shades of autumn that their village had made its own leap along the playful eddies of the sea wind; the deep blue of the sky and water, the bone white limestone, everything around them seems to swirl harmoniously around the existence of Jihoon, and Woojin comprehends what it means to be in the presence of a god.

He tries to pick out the odds and ends of this person, tries to find the pieces that match the Jihoon from his memories and grasps at only one thing.

The silence.

Where before it had cut into Woojin’s flimsy pride, the fact that this silence remains burns out a hollow ache in his chest.

 

-

 

As soon as the last signs of the warriors disappear into the forest, Jihoon scuttles around the formation of rock in a whirl of fabrics.

Woojin strides after him, peering around the corner of the limestone and finding an entrance hidden from view except from directly in front. He skirts the cliff edge, looking fixedly at his destination, and when he reaches the entrance he sees that it carves a downward path.

Jihoon is waiting for him inside, the bright clothes shining like a beacon, and he beckons Woojin in with rapid motions.

Deeper into the cave, the sound of the waves is muffled, only soft billowing echoes slightly masking the sound of their footsteps. Jihoon keeps looking back at him, the straight set of his shoulders from earlier molding into hunched anxiety, as if he’s afraid there will be no one behind him when he next turns his head.

The transition is jarring, and Woojin doesn’t know how to give the reassurance that Jihoon needs, not after months throughout which he had forced himself into the hardened shell of a warrior. In his childhood, he may have known the words that now evade him.

He lets the hush pervade the air, the teeming restlessness resonating between the two of them. Jihoon doesn’t slow his steps and neither does Woojin, and together they trek as far as the sunlight reaches and further, only the sound of their footfalls accompanying them.

Past the darkness, a faint light shines from above, presumably from a break in the rock, and it illuminates a small lake, splashes of purple spilling around its edges. Jihoon breaks into a run and spins around close to the water, spreading his arms excitedly. Woojin makes out just barely the shrouded hints of a grin, and something within him eases at the sight.

Approaching the lake, Woojin realizes that it’s surrounded by something familiar. The question catches in his throat, but slowly Jihoon pulls away the veil covering him and the smile that meets Woojin is everything he’d fought so hard to see.

It tells him, _I know you. I remember you._

 _(You mean something to me._ )

 

-

 

The impossibility of the purple flowers doesn’t stay with him long. It’s not that he forgets about it, only that he can’t figure out how to ask. Woojin knows that Jihoon is called a god, but besides living remotely, he isn’t aware of what it entails and why there’s a need for him to be placed so far from the village. Surely if Jihoon is _blessed_ with supernatural power, it would be best put to use by being in easy distance.

And yet here they both are, as good as banished.

Woojin recognizes his own purpose. He must be wherever Jihoon is, but does Jihoon know why he’s out here?

It gradually occurs to Woojin that Jihoon probably does, from the way he hadn’t fought the guards that had taken him out of the village, and even now he hardly expresses discontent.

_Why don’t you struggle against this?_

_Why are you protected this much?_

_What makes you a god?_

The words linger at the tip of his tongue, flicking tentatively over his lips.

Instead, he decides to wait and observe.

Woojin grows used to the other’s habits. The first morning, he is awoken by Jihoon’s gentle pat on his arm and they climb up to the cave entrance. He watches for a short while as Jihoon walks the perimeter of the treeline, touching each trunk he passes and appearing to mouth something; the words are inaudible, but Woojin doesn’t expect differently. Only with each set of words he traces quietly into the air, the ground under his feet grows ever greener and the trees look just a bit healthier. But the effects of the “words” extend outwards, beyond his line of sight.

“It’s not a stroke of luck, then,” he says after a moment of contemplating what he had seen.

Jihoon tilts his head, uncomprehending.

“That we’ve never had a bad harvest. That sickness has never spread through our trees. It’s been you this whole time, hasn’t it?” Once again, Woojin finds himself on the receiving end of a calculating stare. He doesn’t back down from it.

Jihoon answers with a nod.

“How do you do it? Is it something that only you can do?”

One finger taps on Jihoon’s lips, the hand opening and closing to mime speech.

“You speak?” Woojin asks, bewildered.

Another nod.

Woojin leans back, winded by the discovery. “Then why haven’t you been speaking this whole time?!” he demands. “Why didn’t you talk at all during our lessons? Or to the other people in the village? Why—” His outburst dies at the furious expression on Jihoon’s face, _why do you think?_ lining the hard set of his lips. “... You weren’t allowed,” Woojin concludes.

Jihoon glares at him defiantly, as if daring Woojin to question his acceptance.

He doesn’t. Woojin suspects that there is more he has yet to learn about Jihoon’s ability, which seems too good to be without its own shackles. He apologizes.

 

-

 

_You must be patient, Woojin. You will understand._

 

-

 

The rest of the day passes with no more attempts at conversation on Woojin’s end. He hunts down their food and prepares the meager fare that he’d learned from his training. Jihoon helps where he wishes, decidedly staying away while Woojin skins the rabbit he had caught, sparking a fire in the pit with a mere whisper.

They eat their supper in pointed silence. Several times, Woojin catches Jihoon staring at the fire, forlorn, but he can’t find it in him to reach out and offer comfort. Thoughts of potentially ruining everything before he can figure out how to fix the mess he had started run rampant in his head, driving out all others.

Not to mention the blood. Staining his hands, invisible but present, and even the idea of touching Jihoon with this taint feels unforgivable.

He wishes for a magic word that he can say, similar to Jihoon growing plants or starting fires on command, that can soothe Jihoon’s anger. He wishes for a simple solution that can let Jihoon live as he desires.

That evening, when they head back inside the shelter of the cave, Woojin steals a glance behind him up at the darkening sky. From where he stands, the entrance looks more like the high window of a prison.

Distant as this place is from their village and the council, removed from new edicts, and lacking the abundance of guards, Jihoon is as trapped as he has ever been.

Words have given Jihoon more value than anyone else in their village, and words have also chained him down. The sea and sky spread behind Woojin endlessly, unbelievably, but in front of him is Jihoon and the cage that has been built around them both.

Freedom is still far from his reach.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 3 will be posted... soon!
> 
> -
> 
> Let me know what you think in a comment!


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